How do you deal with an employee that has been caught doing an unsafe act?

Picture this: It’s Tuesday morning and just another day at the office. You are casually opening the mail when suddenly you see something that makes your blood start to boil. A speeding ticket!

You rip open the envelope and see that one of your team members has been speeding in a company vehicle. Maybe you are seeing red, maybe you are dreading an awkward conversation with your employee, or maybe you want to bury your head in the sand and the ticket along with it.

As a manager, it is your responsibility to deal with the unsafe situation to prevent any of your team or business assets from being at risk. But you need to deal with it in a way that is effective. Start by knowing what you want to achieve from the conversation with the staff member, concentrate on the unsafe behaviour, be future focused, and use the Hamburger method.

How do you do all of that? Read on and we will tell you.

Step 1: Know What You Want To Achieve With The Conversation

There are no two ways about it, you are going to need to have a conversation with your team member to prevent this unsafe behaviour from happening again. But before you rush in with guns blazing and speeding ticket in hand, it is important to take some time to consider what you want to achieve from the conversation.

This conversation is a real learning opportunity for your employee, but also for yourself. Both parties might come out of it understanding each other a little better and gaining mutual respect for one another if you handle it the right way.

Obviously, your objective is to change the behaviour. So it is really important to remain calm and focus on that. Don’t get angry or enter into an argument with your employee. The best way to remain calm is to deal with each circumstance as it comes up. Don’t put off approaching the employee at the time. Diffuse the situation instead of creating hostility by saving up a list of all of the negative things they have done, until finally one last straw breaks the camel’s back and you snap.

Step 2: Focus On The Behaviour

When you are speaking with your staff member it is really important to focus on the behaviour that has happened so that it doesn’t seem like you have a problem with them personally. Reinforce it is definitely the behaviour that you don’t like – that is the thing you want to correct.

A great way of doing this is to remove the word ‘you’ from the conversation. Using ‘you’ when discussing a certain behaviour can feel like you are coming from an accusatory position. That can cause your team member to automatically go on the defensive and reduce the chance of getting a positive outcome from your conversation.

For example, saying ‘Why did you complete that welding job without a permit?’ sounds far more critical than saying ‘That welding job was done without a permit to work, why was that?’

Simply by cutting out ‘you’, it provides some distance and some space for the person in question to talk about what really happened, without feeling the need to defend themselves.

Step 3: Be Future Focused

Try not to dwell on what has happened. There is no way to change to past, but there is every chance to influence the future. You can’t change the behaviour that has happened, but with the right guidance, you can stop it from happening again.

This is where you can let the word ‘you’ come back into the conversation. You could say ‘What I would like you to do for the future is to ensure there is a permit to work in place before you begin any jobs. Can you do that?’

Asking them the question of whether it is something they can do, helps them to commit and take responsibility for their actions in the future.

Step 4: Apply The Hamburger Method

No, applying the hamburger method doesn’t mean shouting Big Macs for lunch! But it is a great way to bring the first three points together in your employee meeting.

The method works like this… Start by saying something positive about the way the employee behaves, or how they contribute to the team. This shows them that you value and respect them. You can then follow it up by addressing the unsafe behaviour and the impact it could have, then finish with a positive focus on the future.

Effectively you sandwich the negative between two positive comments to achieve an overall positive result from the conversation. That will make your follow up meeting more successful as you have given the employee a positive behaviour model to uphold.

Having conversations about unsafe behaviour does not need to be awkward and negative if you approach them in the right way. By knowing what you want to achieve and addressing the unsafe behaviour with the hamburger method, you have an excellent chance of preventing the same behaviour from occurring again.

If you have any questions about how you can have these kinds of conversations in your workplace, then get in touch with Noel from Safety IQ. He is a specialist in safety leadership and will be able to help you apply the hamburger method in your business.